ali loves andrew

july 14th was a very special day for two very special people.  one of my best friends married the man of her dreams.  leading up to this glorious day were many fun wedding and bridal showers where i was so lucky to see two of my best friends so often.  you know who you are {cough cough} ali and tin :)

i have posted pictures from some of ali's showers previously, so this post is going to strictly be dedicated to the weekend of ali and andrew's wedding.  

ooooohhhhh how wonderful it was to be part of their special weekend.

the weekend began with a beautiful bridal luncheon that ali's "gran," her sweet aunts and cousins had planned for all of us.  of course me and tin still act a little childish so it wouldn't be normal if some of these pictures weren't taken :)

gosh i love this girl.

and am so thankful that i have had this crazy girl to call one of my best friends for soooo many years.

thanks to someone instagram[ing] this picture i was able to add this lovely picture of tin and i with the bride-to-be.  there aren't many people out there that can say they are still best friends with girls from 1st and 2nd grade.  this girl can.

another lovely pic of tin and i after the bridal luncheon :)

all of the bridesmaids and cousins after the bridal luncheon.

friday evening was of course the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner.  at the rehearsal dinner i was so happy that 3 more of our best friends were going to be joining us {cough cough} george, tess, and ker :) it was so long over due. . . christmas to be exact!

by the looks of these pictures, you can see that we don't miss a beat. 

 so happy that we all still remain so close :)

i feel like i am just getting started on this post because the most important day was yet to come.  saturday afternoon we were suppose to be meeting at the church around 1 to start getting ready.  well i figured that with this group of girls what wouldn't make this day a little brighter with some cheese dip from el poblano, so of course i stopped and picked some up.

tin gettin' her hair did :)

the beautiful bride gettin' her hair did :)

us being silly. . .no. . .okay, before the make up.

the one-and-only. . .bekah gilliam :)

{almost} mrs. hawkins :)

ms. greta and ms. kay had some yummy snacks for us while we were getting ready.  these were some cute cookies that they had made.

and now for some church decor. ali and andrew's guest book.

beautiful flowers done by my favorite teacher who now designs incredible flower arrangements for weddings and other events.

our beautiful bouquets!

tin and i after we are all dressed and ready :)

all of our shoes and al's beautiful pink flat to match all of our dresses :)

ker came to check out the beautiful bride before she said "i do"

al getting her garter on! it was so cute and she specially ordered a camo one because andrew loves some hunting :)

tin and i on the way to the reception after the ceremony!

with my beautiful moma and sissy at the reception

love my little sissy.

2 beautiful best friends. love you both so very much :)

cant believe you are married. so thankful to be one of your best friends and to have been part of this special day.

livin' large in texas: part 2

saturday for becca's bachelorette party it was actually her birthday too.  reilly and lauren came up with such a great idea to hire a professional photographer to take pictures of all of us.  we hired Rachel Ledbetter from Fort Worth, TX.  she was amazing and made it so comfortable and fun for us.

(you can click that link to see a sneak peek of the pictures that she took of us)

i will post all of them at a later date.

after our photo shoot we went to an authentic mexican restaurant in fort worth, before heading back into dallas.  it was really yummy and we even got to sing happy birthday to bec.

after lunch we headed back to dallas to hang out and chill a little bit before goin' two steppin' that night.  some of the girls took a nap, i worked on my school stuff, and becca and morgan went to pick up this precious little one.

this little girl used to live at an orphanage in Uganda, where becca lived for 3 months.  when becca and morgan went on their first trip one of the ladies that went with them fell in love with this little one (i mean how could you not) and she adopted her and she now lives with her new mommy and big sister in Dallas, so becca called her up and arranged for her and morgan to go pick her up from her nanny's house and be able to hang out with her for a few hours before her mommy could pick her up.

we ate cupcakes.

 

played with the ball.

 and then her sweet mommy came to pick her up.

 we just couldn't get enough of her :)

after little one left we all started to get ready for dinner and to head out for our night out 2 steppin'

 

rockin' out at Cowboys Red River

 love this pic! ry and bec doin' some of the line dances :)

 love this picture of all of us after dancin' the night away :)

bec- hope you had a fabulous birthday/bachelorette weekend.  i know we all did.

can't wait 'til june 9 :)

livin' large in texas: part 1

bachelorette/birthday style

{ fyi: bec and her friends are OBSESSED with Friday Night Lights so hints the FNL themed decor }

unfortunately for bec, 4 of her best friends live in texas.  i know that she is really missing them a lot during this special time in her life, especially with all the wedding planning.  after talking about what we were going to do for her bachelorette party we decided that it would be most convenient for us to fly out to texas.  we did some talking about everyone's schedules and it just so happened that the weekend of becca's birthday was going to be JUST perfect for everyone.

so...becca, lo, and myself packed our cowboy boots and we were off to dallas :)

we landed in dallas on friday and were so excited because reilly was there to pick us up :)  we headed to the hotel where we were going to decorate one of the rooms for bec's party we had planned for later that night.  we sent bec to the other room to hang out while we decorated before heading to get dinner at bec's favorite mexican restaurant, chuey's.

reilly and sally, two of becca's best friends live in dallas. along with two of our cousins, lacey and megan.  morgan and lauren, two more of becca's best friends were driving in from austin, where they live.  everyone met up with us for dinner at chuey's before heading back to the hotel.

the cousins :)

 the bride-to-be with sally and ry

 all of us at dinner!

 lauren. bec. morgan.

after dinner we headed back to the hotel for the infamous lingerie shower.  since we are all so artsy of course we took pictures of all the decorations, so here are a few shots of the room decorated.  

(dont mind the horrible hotel room lighting)

(we hung all of bec's lingerie on a string from clothes pins, but i'm not allowed to post pics of that)

cute pantie and bra cookies that ry made!

precious deco that ry made! she used puff paint to make the outline of tx and then painted the bottles with chalk paint before putting those cute little tissue paper flowers in them :) she did such an awesome job with all the cute decor!

cute little pin wheels!

the sign that morgan and lauren made!

morgan and lauren did these cute little wall decorations and also put pictures up all over the room!

goodie bags that lauren made for us non-texas girls :)

yummy cupcakes that sally had made for everyone!

cute little sign that ry bought for decoration and for becca to take home (because this is russ' favorite thing to say)

cute little mason jar glasses that morgan and lauren had with all of our names on them :)

 and the bride-to-be was: surprised. shocked. excited. thankful

 some group photos of us girls. (minus lo in this pic)

 us being silly and posing with this cute frame reilly had brought for decoration :)

 bride-to-be and sally!

 love my sissy!

 becca and her sweet friend lauren!

 love me some morgy!

 holy big eyes! hehe! sorry boo!
such a cute pin that reilly made especially for miss becca boo to wear on the first night!

 pretty sure this might be my favorite picture EVER.  love this 2 more than words can describe.

so. we had a few games that we played during the lingerie shower.

1. bec had to guess who gave her which {little number}
2. we played, "how well do you know your groom." i asked russ a bunch of questions about himself and then we asked bec the questions and she had to guess how russ answered it. every answer she got wrong she had to put a piece of double bubble gum in her mouth. i thought it would be pretty funny seeing her with a mouth full of double bubble, but she actually knows her man very well. (only missed 3 questions)
3. reilly wrote a bunch of questions on a beach ball and we tossed the ball back and forth and whatever question our hands landed on we had to answer it about becca and then when we threw the ball to her she had to answer the questions about us.  this was such a cute idea because we were able to go down memory lane and tell fun stories about becca.

we all had a blast on friday night and then hit the sack to get ready for becca's big birthday surprise we had planned for the next day.

more to come next time :)